‘Sick With Sexism,’ France Must Fight Violence Against Women, Macron Says

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/25/world/europe/france-emmanuel-macron-sexual-assault.html

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PARIS — Calling French society “sick with sexism,” President Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday that promoting gender equality and combating violence against women would be top priorities of his government as he announced measures to crack down on sexual crimes and make it easier for victims to press charges.

Mr. Macron, speaking at a government-sponsored panel in Paris on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, said that “France must no longer be one of those countries where women are afraid” and that it was “essential that shame change sides.”

“Under their blows, under their abuse, a woman dies every three days in France,” Mr. Macron said in a speech at the presidential palace, referring to the number of women killed each year by their current or former partners.

“Of this we must all feel responsible,” he said, before asking for a minute of silence for the 123 such women killed in 2016.

While feminist groups and associations that work with victims of violence or sexual assault welcomed Mr. Macron’s support, many also worried that he had not committed enough resources to back it up.

The feminist association Osez le Féminisme said in a statement that certain measures seemed “pertinent” but that “without financing, any plan to communicate, to train, to raise awareness or to support victims will be in vain.” Feminist demonstrations were held across the country on Saturday, including in Paris.

Of the 225,000 women who were the victims of violence in France last year, less than one in five pressed charges, according to official statistics.

Mr. Macron praised the “clamor” that has risen against sexual harassment and assault, a reference to the outpouring of accounts posted by women on social networks in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein revelations. Many have carried the hashtags #MeToo or #BalanceTonPorc, meaning Expose Your Pig. Mr. Macron said the accounts made him feel “horror and shame” as a man and a politician.

But he also said he did not want France to become a country of “denunciation” where “each relationship between men and women is suspicious.”

“We are not a puritan society,” Mr. Macron said, echoing a longstanding perception in France that gender relations are different here than elsewhere, especially in the United States.

Caroline De Haas, a prominent French feminist, said later on Twitter that Mr. Macron “hasn’t understood what is going on in the country.” She described his plans as a “scattering of measures, some of which address our demands, but without any financial means of enforcing them.”

Some of the measures announced by Mr. Macron were already expected in a bill to be discussed in Parliament next year.

Those include fines for aggressive catcalling or lecherous behavior toward women in public; an extension from 20 years to 30 years of the statute of limitations in cases of sexual assault of minors; and the creation of a new age threshold under which minors cannot legally consent to a sexual relationship. Mr. Macron said he favored 15 as the threshold but would let lawmakers decide. In France, it is illegal for an adult to have sex with someone younger than 15, but it is not punishable as rape if consent is considered to have been given, even, in a recent case, where the girl was as young as 11.

Mr. Macron also said the government would foster awareness of gender equality in schools and in public administrations, and make it easier for victims of violence, harassment or discrimination to press charges. Victims would be allowed file a complaint online or directly at a hospital instead of going to a police station, and to communicate directly with specially trained police officers, he said.

Mr. Macron said the powers of France’s television and radio watchdog would be extended to cover video games and online content as way to push back against pornography and content that promotes violence against women.

The government will consider “legislative changes” next year to fight cyberbullying, he said, and will sponsor a nationwide awareness campaign.

“A cultural fight is won with images,” Marlène Schiappa, France’s junior minister for gender equality, said before Mr. Macron’s speech. “It is won with semantics, it is won with words.”